


I'm a non-believer, but I'll pray to you every day

by Signe (oxoniensis)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M, Gen, Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-20
Updated: 2010-05-20
Packaged: 2017-12-26 18:52:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,331
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/969086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxoniensis/pseuds/Signe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have to believe a lie that big.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I'm a non-believer, but I'll pray to you every day

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Я не фанатик, но тебе молюсь я каждый день](https://archiveofourown.org/works/969228) by [Rassda](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rassda/pseuds/Rassda)



> Beta thanks to girlmostlikely. Title from Basia Bulat's Secret.

_I'm a non-believer, but I'll pray to you every day  
if it would make your eyes forever stay that way  
if it would make you want to stay with me_

 

Life doesn't go back to normal.

There's a kiss.

(Sweet, bitter, hello and goodbye and if-only all rolled into one. It's amazing how much can be said with a press of lips and five seconds.)

Sam's hands are big. They clasp her face almost too tight, and he looks at her when he pulls away, long and sad, like he knows it's too late for him to do anything but move on but he can't help wishing. Like there's a place inside him that still hopes he can have this some day, and Sarah wants to tell him he can, with her, with someone else even, but she doesn't think she'd be convincing.

You have to believe a lie that big.

She drops her hand when they're out of sight, leans against the doorframe and listens to the fading rumble of the Impala. It's stupid, standing there, long after she can pretend she can still hear it.

(She's pretending to herself. That Sam will persuade Dean to turn the car around, or that Dean will take one look at his brother and do a U-turn on the highway. That any minute she'll hear the grunt and rumble of the engine drawing closer and Sam will jump out of the car. He won't even wait for it to stop, he won't bother to shut the door behind him, he'll jump out and run across the gravel to her.

This time he'll look at her and he won't be able to look away. And he'll stay.)

Cold sends her inside eventually. Cold and common sense, because even though her cozy sane world has been shattered, she's still the same practical, logical person underneath. She makes chamomile tea in her favorite blue spotted mug (it was her mother's favorite), adds an extra spoonful of honey, and warms her hands around it. She opens letters, sorts through invoices and receipts, answers the phone and reads emails. There's plenty to keep her busy.

(She still aches from Sam's last look. The bruises from being thrown about by a ghost fade in a few days, but the ache settles in her belly, and she isn't sure it'll ever go.)

*

Sam and Dean don't come back.

But that's not the end. The world's changed. No, the world's the same as it always was. It's just that now she knows what it's really like.

(It isn't the safe place she thought it was.)

She lies awake and thinks about it. Gets up and wanders. Looks out her window into the dark and shivers. Wonders what's out there, what evil she can't even see. She closes her curtains but that doesn't make her feel any better.

(It scares her.)

*

She picks up her phone to call Sam. Once, twice, sometimes more times a day. She never does. It has to be his choice, she tells herself, even though she doubts he has many real choices left in his life.

But she never deletes his number, and when she gets a new cell, she makes sure to transfer it over.

(She knows the number by heart.)

*

Sarah knows her strengths and weaknesses. Sitting idly by isn't her way. She starts to read.

She exhausts the Sojourner Truth Library's mythology and magic section in less than two weeks. Next she starts searching for books when she's buying for the auction house.

(There are more than she expects. She buys them all.)

It's hard to know what to believe. The books are old. Some read like insane rantings, others are naïve and simple. But then, she's been attacked by the spirit of a girl in a painting, seen a friend's throat slit by a phantom, seen the truth in Sam's eyes. She knows not to disbelieve too quickly.

She doesn't sleep well. She remembers what Sam said, about salt and iron, and puts thick trails of salt on her windowsills. She keeps a poker under her bed. She took it from the auction house, made sure it was pure iron.

(It's important.)

*

She doesn't date, not even a coffee date, let alone anything more. Not because of her mother any more, not because she can't bring herself to be happy the same way she was, but because she doesn't want to lie, and she can't imagine telling anyone about this, all this madness in the world.

(And because she can't get Sam out of her head.)

*

She starts to check anything unusual coming into the auction house, just in case. She holds up shipment on a pair of Song vases for a week, checking and double checking their provenance, worried that they might be cursed. It's just a bad feeling she has about them, nothing specific, but she can't get it out of her head, so she runs with it. She stalls her father so many times over moving them on he starts to ask questions. And she lies to him. She hates it, but she lies to him - badly, but he believes her because she's his daughter and she's never lied to him before. She sees the puzzlement on his face, and the trust that he only has when he looks at her — he's an auctioneer, he trusts no one — and she hates what's she's doing. To both of them, to their relationship.

Then she thinks of Evelyn, remembers the sound her head made when it fell back, and keeps lying.

The vases aren't cursed, just stolen. Her father asks her how she knew, and she shakes her head. She doesn't know, just a gut thing, and maybe she's just more aware now.

(She thinks that's a good thing.)

*

It's lonely, having secrets she can't share.

She starts painting again. She paints hair on fire and iron slicing through air and shapes hiding in the darkness. She paints the things that scare her, the things she doesn't understand and ones she understands too well.

The paintings sell well and her father's proud of her.

She puts all the money in a savings account. For a rainy day. For an emergency.

(It's the only way she can share her secrets.)

*

Another page ripped off the calendar. Two and a half years since her mother died, one and a half since Sam came and went. Her father points out that she hasn't had a holiday in all that time. She counters with the Christmas shopping trip she took to Manhattan, a bunch of college friends on a long weekend. He says that wasn't long enough to count. Besides, it was almost a year ago.

The next day she picks brochures at random from a travel agent's shelves. She leaves them lying around, and hopes her father will be satisfied. She doesn't mean to look at them, but one night there's nothing on the television besides reruns of Law and Order, so she picks up a couple and starts browsing.

Two hours later, and she has a list of ten destinations.

(She can't chose between them.)

*

She chooses all of them. A road trip, a back pack on the back seat of her car and a picnic basket so she won't need to stop too soon. She takes a few books, too, and her laptop, full of notes, and an iron poker and salt.

She's not sure what she's hoping for. A fresh perspective, maybe, or a world where everything is so normal she can tell herself that past year was just a bad dream. She's not sure if she's running away, or running towards something.

So she sets out, window wound down and the wind in her hair. No idea what to expect, and she likes that. She's scared and she's hopeful, and maybe she'll find demons and maybe she'll find something good. Something or someone as good as Sam.

(Maybe she'll find Sam.)


End file.
